


Every Fragment has a Place

by TheHoardingGoblin



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Anakin understands human emotions much better than the Jedi, Butterflies, Fluff, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Honestly though Jedi and emotions, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 17:43:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20970506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHoardingGoblin/pseuds/TheHoardingGoblin
Summary: Aka. The one where Obi-Wan takes Anakin to a butterfly farm. Look, Anakin is not doing well with his meditation, so Obi-Wan tries to be a good teacher and help him with it... it's just that butterflies don't exactly help.Basically just some sweet, wholesome Obi-Wan and Anakin alone-time, laced with sadness and grief because apparently I cannot not write that stuff.





	Every Fragment has a Place

**Author's Note:**

> I came up with this idea when I visited a butterfly farm my grand-aunt - whom I've loved dearly and who's passed away a few years ago - always liked to visit, and I got all weird and messy in my mind because... it's been such a special place to her so it really... touched me? To be there? Honestly, I can't describe it well, but anyways, I felt inspired to write about the place, and Anakin and Obi-Wan are two characters I always like to write about. 
> 
> Title from "The Clockmaker's Daughter": 
> 
> There are pieces that should fit  
Find your method: follow it, you won't go wrong  
Fix a vision in your mind, see the picture when combined...  
Hold it...  
Every fragment has a place, know the heart behind the face and let it grow  
Once you've found her don't let go.

Anakin awakes with a start, eyes wide open, woken up by the wave of sorrow and pain that hit him in his sleep – not his own, but coming from the other side of his bedroom wall, from his… from Obi-Wan. Anakin still cannot bring himself to call the older boy his _Master_. Too much is linked to the word, too many painful memories… He’s sure Obi-Wan doesn’t mind, though…

Not now, anyways, that much is for sure, because Anakin can feel him, can feel his terror waft over to him over their bond. Obi-Wan’s having a nightmare. _Again_. He thinks he is hiding it well, but Anakin is very attentive, and he’s learned to read people. His mother taught him. Slaves need to be able to do that. 

The last few nights, Anakin has been lying here, not moving a muscle, until Obi-Wan had woken up by himself. Then, in an instant, he had blocked himself off from Anakin and the boy had been able to go back to sleep. But not tonight. No, not tonight. Anakin has had time to think about this whole situation, and he has come to the conclusion that, if Obi-Wan keeps burying his pain within himself, it won’t end well. He can feel that it won’t end well. And if the older boy doesn’t want to speak to him on his own, then Anakin will have to make him.

So he stands up, wraps himself in the soft grey blanket Obi-Wan has gifted him when he moved into the room – because Anakin still got cold easily during the night, he’s still used to the heat of Tatooine – and quickly walks over to the other bedroom. He doesn’t knock, because why would he, and lets himself in. It’s dark, Anakin can barely see a thing, but there is a datapad on Obi-Wan’s nightstand that hasn’t been turned off and that shows a small hologram. It rotates slowly, and has a faint blue shine to it that is just bright enough to see that Obi-Wan is still asleep, tossing and turning on the bed. As Anakin steps closer, he can see that the face of the older boy is twisted into a pained grimace, and he can hear him whisper into the nothingness of his dreams in a language Anakin doesn’t recognize.

“Obi-Wan?”, he asks softly, reaches out and shakes Obi-Wan’s arm. When that doesn’t reach the effect Anakin has hoped for, he climbs on the bed, grabs Obi-Wan’s shoulders – he can’t really hold him, Obi-Wan is taller and stronger than him – and first shakes him again, then digs his little fingernails into the fabric. He’s learned that this hurts enough to wake anyone up, and Obi-Wan is no exception. With a small yelp he awakes, blinking up at the shape of Anakin sitting on his chest.

“What… Ani?”

Obi-Wan’s voice sounds strangely small, and raspy from the sleeptalking. “Is something wrong?”

“You tell me”, Anakin answers. “You were the one having a nightmare.”

He’s not sure, but it seems like a look of regret or guilt crosses over Obi-Wan’s face for a second.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Anakin crosses his arms. “You have though. The last few nights.”

Obi-Wan makes a small noise. “That was not my intention. You should have told me. I would have made sure to shield better then.”

How can it be that a twenty-five-year-old somehow is less reasonable than a nine-year-old, Anakin wonders silently. Out loud, he says: “You shouldn’t keep it to yourself, you know.”

“Anakin, I assure you…” Obi-Wan sits up, gently pushing Anakin off his chest and instead onto the mattress next to him. “I’m quite alright. Don’t worry about me, and go back to sleep.”

“I can feel you, Obi-Wan”, Anakin says. “And you don’t feel alright. You’re in pain, and you keep it to yourself. That’s not healthy.”  
He remembers how his mother used to tell him that he should never, ever bottle up his feelings, because if he did, one day he would explode, like a can that has too much pressure applied to it.

“It’s nothing you have to worry about”, Obi-Wan insists. “I have to deal with this myself.”  
“You don’t!”, Anakin exclaims. “I know you Jedi think that emotions are bad and all that, but keeping things to yourself until you break is just as bad, so please – just talk about it!”

Obi-Wan, to Anakin’s utter surprise, laughs. It’s not a happy laugh though.

“I thought I was the teacher, and you were the student, not the other way around.”

“Even teachers can learn”, Anakin shoots back immediately, and again Obi-Wan laughs. “True, but… my demons I have to battle alone. I don’t want to worry you with them.”

“You worry me when you don’t talk about them!”, Anakin says, and why doesn’t Obi-Wan get it? Anakin doesn’t have anyone here on Corusant except for him, and he needs Obi-Wan to be okay, because he can’t do this, he can’t become a Jedi without him! Why doesn’t he see that?

“Ani”, Obi-Wan says gently, and Anakin realizes that he’s been projecting his thoughts. Obi-Wan reaches out to him, affectionately ruffles his short hair.

“Ani, I am okay”, Obi-Wan promises. “I just have some things to deal with, but I promise that I won’t break. Don’t you trust me? Don’t you trust me to take care of myself as well as of you?”

Anakin isn’t sure, and he makes sure to send this thought over their training bond. It’s just a thing threat, this bond, but it will grow stronger. Anakin hopes so, at least.

“Would you trust me more if I told you about my dream?”, Obi-Wan asks. He sounds so hesitant that Anakin almost says No, just so he doesn’t make the other boy feel uncomfortable, but then he nods. Not because he wants to know, but because he knows, feels that Obi-Wan needs to speak about it, even if he doesn’t know it himself.

“I dream about Qui-Gon”, Obi-Wan says. “About the Sith that… killed him.”  
That makes sense. Anakin should have figured that out himself.

“In my dream… I relive that moment. Again and again.” Obi-Wan turns his face away. Anakin can still see the glistening of a tear in the faint light from the hologram.

“I feel like a hole has been ripped into my heart and soul”, Obi-Wan confesses, whispering, as if this is a shameful thing, a bad thing. He probably thinks it is.

“I miss him, too”, Anakin says softly. “Not like you do, but… he was the first person I ever trusted aside from Mum. He freed me. He was like a wonder. It… it hurts that he’s not here.”

Obi-Wan nods. “It hurts me just the same way.”

Anakin thinks No, it hurts you more, but he doesn’t say it. Instead, he lays down and cuddles closer to Obi-Wan. He fakes a yawn and closes his eyes. It is a nasty little trick he has used a few times on his mother when he has felt her getting to exhausted, but she had still tried to stay awake. It works even better with Obi-Wan. He reaches over, shuts off the datapad, then lays down on his side and pulls Anakin closer, curling around him like he’s trying to protect him from blaster bolts or other harm. Anakin grins to himself, because he knows that once the cuddling has been initiated, anyone will fall asleep soon enough, and lets sleep claim his body.

When they wake up, sunlight falls faintly though the half-shut blinds of Obi-Wan’s room, and Obi-Wan feels calmer than he has in a while. Anakin considers this a success.

They eat breakfast together in the main dining hall of the temple. They sit at a table with some of Obi-Wan’s friends – a kiffar knight called Quinlan Vos who seems to enjoy bantering with Obi-Wan, a mirilian knight called Luminara Unduli, and of course knight Bant Eerin whom Anakin has already met. Anakin is content to sit there in silence, eat his fruit and pastries and drink his milk and watch Obi-Wan with his friends. It’s nice to see him be a more relaxed than how he’s been the night before.

Right before they leave, Knight Vos tells Obi-Wan something in a language Anakin doesn’t know. He thinks it might be Ryll though, because Obi-Wan laughs, answers in the same language and then remarks in Basic: “Aayla has taught you well, I see. Though your accent is horrible!”

Knight Vos rolls his eyes. “Not everyone can be a human protocol droid like you, Kenobi.”

Obi-Wan snorts and tells Anakin to grab some things he can take with him in his pockets as well. Anakin is a bit confused, but he’s smarter than to refuse to take more food. He knows too well how it feels not to have anything to eat.

They go back to their quarters, and Anakin wants to go and get ready for his classes, but Obi-Wan stops him. “We’re doing something else today”, he says, and there’s a little something shining in his eyes that Anakin can’t identify.

“Get your cloak”, Obi-Wan advised him. “We’ll leave in a few minutes, okay?”

“Where are we going?”, Anakin asks. Obi-Wan doesn’t tell him, just gives him a small smirk and waits for him to get ready.

They meet the Jedi that teaches Meditation on their way. Obi-Wan greets him and says something about _taking his Padawan on an educational excursion _– Anakin is sure that this is a straight-out lie though. Obi-Wan wouldn’t have been so secretive about it if it really was just an educational trip.

“Obi-Wan?”, Anakin asks when they get off their transport. “Where are we?”

They stand on a landing platform of one of the smaller tower buildings of the closer environment of the Jedi temple. Obi-Wan shrugs and leads him inside the building, then into one of the lifts. They get off three floors further down.

“Wait…” It takes Anakin a moment to read the sign over the door. “What is a butterfly farm?”

Obi-Wan smiles softly. “A special place. You’ll see.”

Anakin nods. “Okay… and why are we here? At this… special place? I mean, this clearly isn’t the educational trip you told my teachers you were taking me on.”

Obi-Wan takes a moment to answer. “Well… your other teachers told me you have difficulties with meditations… and of course, as the responsible Master I aspire to be, I decided to change that.”

Anakin raises an eyebrow and just looks at Obi-Wan, not saying a word. After a moment, Obi-Wan sighs. “I thought that, after last night… we didn’t get much sleep, so maybe classes for you and whatever is on my to-do-list today is not the right thing to do today.”

He pauses for a moment. “Also Quinlan may or may not have made me promise that I would take a day off. Meaning that he pressured me really. He and my other friends have a tendency to do that when they think I am getting too… uh, yeah. Anyways.”

Anakin nods. “So… a day off?”

“Oh, you’re still gonna learn some things about meditation.” Obi-Wan grins and opens the door. “Just not the way you know it from the temple.”

Anakin follows him through the door and finds himself in a white entrance hall full of for the bright green sofas and armchairs everywhere and the wooden shelves with colourful things on them that seem to be purchasable.

“Oh!”, a male Twi’lek says and approaches the two of them with a bright smile. “Padawan Kenobi, I haven’t seen you in quite a while.”

Obi-Wan smiles. “It’s Knight Kenobi, actually.”

The Twi’lek nods. “I have heard about Knight Jinn. Please, allow me to express how sorry I am for your loss.”

Obi-Wan’s smile turns sad. “Thank you, Ravil’ha. Here, uh, meet my apprentice. This is Anakin Skywalker.”

The Twi’lek – Ravil’ha – smiles at Anakin and waves. “Hey there!”

“Hi.” Anakin purses his lips. He’s not sure what is going on here.

“So… you’re here for the usual thing, I assume?”, Ravil’ha asks. Obi-Wan nods. “Are the halls empty, currently?”

“Empty except for my little ones”, Ravil’ha answers. “You know the way, and you can call me if you need something.”

“Of course. Thank you.”

Obi-Wan bows his head and then leads Anakin through the room and over to a green door. Behind it was a curtain of heavy half-clear plastic strips. Obi-Wan parts it with one hand and gently pushesAnakin though before closing the door again.

Anakin can’t believe his own eyes. The room is full of plants, dark deep green plants, some with bright pink and orange flowers on them. The walls aren’t transparent, but rather made of a milk-glass-like material. It is warm in this room, and the air is humid like in the swamps on Naboo. The floor is covered with brown soil and small pebbles. It’s almost like being on a completely different world, no longer on the mechanical, dead Corusant. And the strangest thing are the… what are they? They are of many different sizes, some of them only the size of a small bead, others as large as Anakin’s hand, and they are bright colourful and they’re _flying_!

“Wizard!”, Anakin whispers.

“Those are butterflies”, Obi-Wan says in a soft tone of voice. “You see the big blue ones? They’re from Bravk’Essuma. And the orange-brown ones? Imported from the Vasna-Berik system. None of these are originally from here, they’ve been bred here in this building.”

Anakin only half-listens to this, he’s way too busy staring at those strange colourful creatures.

“Come”, Obi-Wan says gently, takes Anakin’s shoulder and steers him through the little jungle in the room. They get to a wooden bridge that is arched over an artificial pond, and in the clear water swim large, red-and-white fish.

“Those are from my home-world”, Obi-Wan whispers. “Stewjon. They’re called Kona-Harkoos.”

“Wow”, Anakin whispers. “Why do they look so…”

“They’re bred for garden ponds”, Obi-Wan explains. “They don’t exist like this in the wild. People like having colourful fish in their garden instead of boring grey and brown fish.”

Anakin nods – that makes sense.

“Come. There is more.”

Anakin follows Obi-Wan, further through the jungle-room. He trips again and again because he just can’t help but stare at the butterflies and bright flowers and… he just has never seen something like this before, it’s amazing…

They sit down on a wooden bench eventually. Obi-Wan waits until Anakin has taken on the traditional meditational sitting position with the crossed legs.

“Okay, now”, Obi-Wan says. “I want to tell you a story first, okay?”

Anakin nods, his eyes following a small butterfly with purple rims on the wings that are otherwise mostly transparent.

“When I became Qui-Gon’s Padawan, he and I… we had a rough start. I almost wasn’t accepted as a Padawan at all, they… the temple send me away. I had aged out.”

Anakin whips his head around and stares at him. “They throw people out if they don’t get accepted as Padawans?!”

“If they are thirteen and haven’t been accepted, and won’t become healers, pilots or guards, then yes.” Obi-Wan nods. “And I was almost thirteen when… well, things were a bit… very… messy. Qui-Gon’s former Padawan, he fell to the dark side, and he wanted revenge on Qui-Gon. I got in the way. But long story told short, I did become his Padawan in the end.”

Anakin waits, but Obi-Wan needs a moment until he can speak on.

“We had a mission, when I was almost fourteen, on Melida/Daan. There was a civil war going on that we got into. Qui-Gon wanted to carry out our mission and then leave… I felt sympathetic with a group of children my age that fought against the grown-ups in that war. Qui-Gon let me choose… and I chose to fight with them.”

Anakin gasps. “He left you in the warzone?”

Obi-Wan nods. “He got me back eventually. I was allowed to become his Padawan again. It’s just… after that, we had some difficulties. We had to learn how to live with each other again. I had many nightmares… a friend of mine was killed in that civil war. I was… broken, a bit. That’ why Qui-Gon brought me here. This place… I re-learned how to trust the force here. I struggled after… all that happened. Every time I tried to go into the force and meditate, I thought I felt her… Cerasi… dying again. And all the others.”

Anakin purses his lips. “And this place… helped?”

Obi-Wan smiles softly. “Very much, yes. So… I don’t know, I sometimes come here when I feel bad or when I am sad… this is a place of happy memories for me, and I figured that maybe it could help you, too.”

Anakin cannot help but smile. If this place really is this special to Obi-Wan… he appreciates that he had brought him here. Very much.

“Okay, now, take a deep breath and focus”, Obi-Wan tells him. Anakin complies – but then, an especially bright yellow butterfly zooms past him, and he just has to turn his head to look at it. Obi-Wan carefully places his hands on the sides on his head and has him turn back to his original position. “Don’t do that.”

“But _Obi-Wan_!”

“I know. They are big and bright and colourful and you have never seen anything like them before. “ Obi-Wan sounds understanding. “So you want to look. But that is not what we’re here to do. You can look at them all you want in a bit, I promise. But for now… calm down… rest your hands on your knees… don’t move your head… close your eyes.”

Anakin sighs but does as he is told.

“You want to keep very still”, Obi-Wan says. “Otherwise they won’t come and sit on you.”

Anakin opens his eyes again and stares at the older boy in disbelieve. “Why would I want them to sit on me?!”

“I… uh…” Obi-Wan sighed. “I’m not good at this. Just try it, alright? Try keeping still. Allow them to use your body as a place to rest. Allow them to sit on your shoulders and arms. I know it sound strange and bizarre, but it really is not that bad. I promise.”

“If you say so…” Anakin swallows, closes his eyes again and tries to calm down like he needs to for meditation. It’s not easy – everything in him wants to move, scratch, look.

“It’s alright if you don’t get it right the first time”, Obi-Wan says gently. “The whole thing is about trying, not about succeeding immediately.”

“Doesn’t Yoda say that _There is no try_?”

Obi-Wan chuckles. “Without trying there can’t be succeeding. That’s what Qui-Gon used to say. And there’s no shame in not succeeding.”

No, Anakin thinks. No, he wants to get this right! So he takes a deep breath and tries to channel the same calm he has felt from Obi-Wan when he meditates. He thinks of his mother back on Tatooine. He thinks of how good her fingers had felt when she’s combed through his hair and how her voice had sounded when she’s sung lullabies to him. He thinks of how she would hold him during a raging sandstorm when he has been buzzing with energy he couldn’t let out in their tiny home. He has never been good at sitting still, doing nothing… but maybe this here isn’t really _doing nothing_. He straightens his back, clenches and unclenches his fingers, tries to get comfortable. He imagines the sounds of a sandstorm howling outside their home, imagines the voice of his mother, warm and gentle, as she tells him about sungods and krayt dragons and moondancers and other miraculous things. He tries to make things appear in his mind like he would do on Tatooine on a boring day. He imagines that he is part of an engine, and the butterflies are grains of sand that fly around him. His skin becomes the casing of the engine. Sand may scratch the case, but it doesn’t damage the delicate mechanical parts inside of the casing.

He manages to stay still for almost ten minutes, until he feels something that is almost weightless touch his nose. He slowly opens his eyes and sees – not entirely focussed because they are so close to his eyes – two bright emerald wings. A butterfly that sits on his nose. He tries not to breathe and not to scare it, but he can only hold his breath for so long. As he exhales, the little green thing flees.

He is still calm though, calmer than he has ever been in meditation. He can feel the butterflies around him – he feels them in the Force, little flickering lights that move incredibly fast. They don’t think, but they still have a spot in the Force. He can also feel them when they land on his head and arms, although they weigh almost nothing. It is interesting to concentrate on them in the Force. Maybe this is how meditation is supposed to be? Is this how Obi-Wan experiences it all the time?

Anakin opens his eyes and looks at the older boy. Obi-Wan sits across from him, eyes closed, perfectly still, butterflies all over him. Some brown-and-blue ones sit in his spiky short hair, a red-and-black one with yellow spots on the tips of the wings clings to the colour of his tunic, a bright yellow one dangles from his left ear, a bright white one sits on his cheek, opening and closing its wings, in a rhythm that resembles a heartbeat, almost. Open, close, open, close…

Obi-Wan looks calm and happy, and he radiates this calm and happiness into the Force. Ever since they have met, on the Naboo cruiser after the first encounter with the Sith, Anakin hasn’t seen him this calm. Actually, he has never seen him this calm and happy. Right now, he can almost imagine how he must have looked as a Padawan, as a fourteen-year-old. Rounder face, no dark circles under his eyes, a shorter braid than the one he has cut off to place it on Qui-Gon’s pyre, his robes even bigger on him than they are now. It’s a funny thing to imagine. Anakin can’t help but giggle. Obi-Wan cracks an eye open.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing”, Anakin says quickly. Obi-Wan grins knowingly. “You did well”, he says. “You did very well, that was good! That was an improvement for sure.”

Anakin beams at the compliment and at the pride that threads into Obi-Wan’s voice.

“Do you think you can try it one more time?”, Obi-Wan asks. “And then we can look around the garden here some more. How does that sound?”

All too willingly, Anakin closes his eyes again – almost intuitionally, his mind finds the fine bond to Obi-Wan, and holds onto it. From here, he finds his way into the calm state of meditation again easily. He has never been this alone in his mind, he realizes.

He can hold his meditation for even longer this time. Maybe it is because this time he can feel Obi-Wan much more. His calm mixes with Anakin’s, and it’s _nice_. It feels… familiar and intimate. He feels like he belongs, like Obi-Wan and he are two pieces of a machine that fit together, like they're two fragments that have a place right next to each other. 

After another few minutes, they finish their exercise and walk around the room again. Anakin looks at every single butterfly and every flower and every fish and just at everything. He wants to take it all in, in case he can’t come back here anytime soon.

And then, his stomach grumbles.

“Can we eat something?”, he asks. Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow. “Have you already eaten all the things you took from breakfast?”

In fact, Anakin has completely forgotten about them. He has hidden them in his room – as backup. It’s a reflex. You’ve got long-lasting food? You hide it.

Obi-Wan catches the string of thought. “It’s alright. We can eat at a restaurant before we go back. There is a very good diner, a friend of mine owns it.”

Anakin thinks about it for the briefest bit of a second. “Yes, please!”

Obi-Wan laughs. “Well, that’s certainty if I have ever seen it. Come on now, Padawan.”

He places one arm around Anakin’s shoulders as they leave the building, carefully closing the door so that the butterflies can’t escape. They say goodbye to Ravil’ha and then get on an airtaxi towards the diner Obi-Wan has mentioned.

“Obi-Wan”, Anakin says as they sit in a booth at Dex’ Diner. “Do you think I can bring Mum to the butterfly farm one day?”

“Oh, sure.” Obi-Wan looks up from the menu. “I’m sure she would like it very much.”

“She would _love_ it!”

“Well then.” Obi-Wan smiled. “We’ll have to free her soon then, so that you can bring her here and show it to her.”

Anakin nods enthusiastically at that. 


End file.
